Home

Docs

Faq

These are some Frequently Asked Questions about this service, with
some answers.

What is The Top Link?

The Top Link is a stream oriented social network service.

You can use it to write short notices about yourself, where you are,
and what you're doing, and those notices will be sent to all your friends
and fans.

You can also post event invitations, bookmarks, polls, and questions or
other kinds of social broadcasts.

How is The Top Link different from Twitter?

Like Twitter, The Top Link is a light service
with a stream-oriented interface. It uses @-replies, hashtags,
provides search, and has private messages. It provides an API, and can
be integrated with SMS systems. You can create lists.

Unlike Twitter, The Top Link allows more data than just plain text
and links to travel across the network. You can install the StatusNet
software that runs The Top Link on your own servers, since it's Free
and Open Source software. You can make groups, and share privately
with those groups.

You can make your site available only to people you choose. You can
customize it with your own themes and plugins, or download plugins
from the StatusNet site.

How is The Top Link different from Yammer, SocialCast, or Salesforce Chatter?

Like some enterprise social software services, StatusNet lets you
share privately with other people in your company. You can use
microapps to post richer kinds of data, use public and private groups
to share with team members, use extended profiles to show more about
yourself and your company, and review groups and users in a directory.

Unlike those other services, StatusNet is free and open source
software. You can install it on your own servers. You can customize
the theme and add plugins.